Move WordPress.com to WordPress.org With Ease

WordPress.com is a great place to start blogging. It’s free, you can personalize your domain name, and all the tools are there to get going.

Eventually though, you’re going to want something with a little more oomph, a little more flexibility and a little more professionalism.

The most obvious choice is to make the switch to self hosted WordPress.

I really struggled the first time I had to move WordPress.com to WordPress.org, and I really wish someone would have written a guide – so here you go!

To get started, you’re going to need to know the difference between WordPress and self hosted WordPress software.

For first time users, this can seem a little daunting (believe me, I’ve been there!) but once you know how to do it, it’s really not too difficult. Here is how to tell the difference between WordPress and self hosted WordPress.

What’s The Difference Between WordPress.com and Self Hosted WordPress?

WordPressIS a website. You are using their hosting to display your blog for free at a personalized “subdomain” – or you can upgrade to buy a domain name and use that instead (I believe this is called “WordPress Premium” nowadays). WordPress gives you free hosting, but with limited resources and functionality.

WordPressis software provided by WordPress.org which you install on your own hostingand have complete control of. It offers more functionality and flexibility – it is your own complete website.

Why they would call them both the same name, and use the same logo and everything else is beyond me, but that’s just how it is!

The main benefits of having your own hosting with WordPress installed on it is that you can install better themes, and plugins.

To be honest, if you want to get serious about blogging, if you want to make money from your blog, WordPress.com just isn’t going to cut it.

At this point, you want to click “Start Export” on the right. This will give you this screen:

Leave the “All content” option ticked and click on “Download Export File” – this will download a .xml file to your computer. Make a note of where it is, because we’ll be needing it pretty soon!

Getting Your Own Hosting

Okay, so this is the crucial part. Picking the right hosting provider is extremely important!

This costs a little money, but not a lot. It works out to only $3-4 per month – or one less Starbucks coffee per month if you prefer to look at it that way!

BlueHost.com is the hosting provider I use. I also recommend them to all of my clients, and use their corporate server rental services for my own projects. Their customer service is great, and if you have any issues you can come straight to me – email me.

It definitely can be confusing when you’re new to it. I had a lot of trouble the first time I moved a site from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, but now that I know what I’m doing it takes no time at all. You can see from the other comments that a lot of others have had the same experience. Let me know if you need any help when you’re ready to make the switch, or if you have any extra questions 🙂

This is a great resource! You’ve done a really thorough job of documenting the steps.

I moved a blog from WordPress.com to self-hosted many years ago. It was rough. I thought I was going to pull my hair right out of my head. But then again, those were the days when you had to install all WordPress.org updates manually. Each blog took about 30 minutes every time WP updated. No one-clicking back then! Talk about pulling your hair out. WordPress has come a long way.

Trust me Carla, I’ve been there! That’s one of the reasons I wanted to get this up; because when you know how to do it it’s actually really straightforward. Moving this test site only took me about 10 minutes! Agreed, WordPress is for sure my CMS of choice, you can’t beat it now.

Thanks for the compliment on the blog – I checked your site out too, very nice! I’d love your opinion on my new company site if you have time – http://topshelfmedia.ca

You are obviously well versed in technical issues and you spell everything out really well in this blog post. For anyone just starting out who might be overcome by all the jargon I would recommend outsourcing this. I wasted a great deal of time at the beginning of my blogging journey, trying to do it myself.
Tom, I see an opportunity here for you, lol
Thanks for sharing this great info.

Thanks – this isn’t my first rodeo, and I too once wasted a lot of time figuring this stuff out! Thanks for pointing that out, I am now offering WordPress migrations under my Services page. Thanks for stopping by and reading this, Lynda!

Great stuff. I do suggest though that bloggers create a good community while in wordpress.com before making the switch. It can be VERY lonely out there when you do if your followers, especially the most regular ones, don’t come knocking as often.

Hi, I have a couple of questions I was hoping you could help clear!
1. When I move from .com to self hosted will all the comments / likes on my posts also transfer or are those lost?
2. Will my followers list on WordPress.com and my email list also transfer or do I start at zero again?
3. One of the primary reasons im looking to move at this point (besides greater design flexibility) is to improve my hits from Search engines. Do you believe the use of SEO plugins like yoast will actually make a difference significant enough to warrant the move?

Hi Hoshner, I’ll do my best here to answer your questions;
1. I believe comments are moved with the blog. As for likes, are you referring to social media i.e. Facebook likes? Or a like system built into WordPress.com?
2. You can integrate WordPress.org with WordPress.com through the Jetpack plugin – so you can keep your WordPress.com followers. However, I would recommend starting a mailing list (I use MailChimp, but Aweber is good too) and start referring your subscribers to that. I would write a post about the move on your WordPress.com site once you’ve moved so that your subscribers are aware of the move and can follow you over. The nice thing is that you can leave your WordPress.com blog live and just have a notice up to let new/old visitors know that you’ve moved.
3. Yes I do, beacuse Google rankings are based on authority and quality. Google knows if you’re using a free platform like WordPress.com or Blogger, and won’t rank you as highly as similar self hosted sites. The reasoning being that anyone can make a free site and fill it with whatever they want. Self hosted sites require a little time and money and are generally less used by spammers. Forget YOAST, (although YOAST is awesome) just the act of moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org will help you in the search engines.